There’s always something strange to me—a Canadian girl—about celebrating Christmas in what feels like the middle of summer. I was always confused, growing up, to see the cast of Babe celebrating Yuletide in the dead heat of summer (I didn’t then realize the movie was set in New Zealand). Now I’m in the same boat, but on the North American continent. I’ll wake Christmas morning to the forceful breeze of a fan on my face, no snow in sight, and a summertime-early sunrise.
Three days before Christmas, I took Eden to the screened porch as the sun set behind the palms—the fronds of which always put me more in mind of Easter—and enjoyed the evening cool(ish) and Christmas tree lights and cicadas or crickets or frogs while John-Mark and his brother bustled in the kitchen, preparing an extravagant meal. Eden napped and I remembered the firelog video that played on a loop every year around this time on some channel whose name I’ve forgotten. Those without fireplaces could set their TV to mimic one thanks to a film by someone whose plaid-clad arm occasionally made an appearance to stoke the fire.
I opened the Voice Recorder and audiotaped the sound of this slice of Florida on Christmas Eve eve eve. There’s the background chirping of tiny insect life, the chopping of veggies on the cutting board, vehicles on the wet streets, and an occasional unintelligible, excited holler from our nephew. If any of you consider Florida home, and miss summer-esque Christmas, here is my slapdash auditory ode to the firelog channel:
Merry Christmas!
Natasha (Strydhorst) Unsworth (‘16) is a science communication researcher and practitioner working on her Ph.D. at Texas Tech University. Natasha hails from Calgary, Alberta. Some of her favo(u)rite authors are C. S. Lewis, Francis Collins, and Bill Bryson. Her favourite earthly place is the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and her favourite activities are reading and enjoying the great outdoors—preferably simultaneously.
